Destroying Bitcoin with a single question

[antikvark]

Let's suppose that you bought all the stocks in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? Well you can liquidate them and get an enormous wealth in the form of land, buildings, vehicles, machines, equipment and other property of the companies that issued these stocks.

Let's suppose that you bought all the fiat currencies in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? Well you can wait a couple of months and then visit the banks that issued them to claim an enormous wealth in the form of land, buildings, vehicles, machines, equipment and other property that the banks seized from the borrowers. Namely, given that you bought all the fiat currencies, borrowers are unable to get the money for their loan repayments, and unpaid loans, lead to seizure of the property that was pledged as a collateral. Given that the money issued by the banks is the liability of the banks, you as its holder have the claim on the bank's property. Now, why you have such a claim in the first place? It's because the banks created money out of thin air, which means that on its own, money is worthless. It is just numbers in the bank accounts or on the banknotes. So when the borrowers used these numbers to get goods or services from the market participants it is these participants who actually provided valuable property or work to the borrowers. Given that borrowers defaulted of their loans, they didn't return the equivalent of these property or work back the market participants through trades that would get them money for the loan repayments. That's why the market participants have the claims on the property that the banks sized from the borrowers. Since you bought all the money from these participants you became the owner of these claims.

Finally, let's suppose that you bought all the bitcoins in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? To put it another way. After said purchase, all you have is a number in a computer memory - 18.232.575 (bitcoins currently in circulation). Let's suppose that I open my Excel spreadsheet and put the same number into it -> 18.232.575. Now we both have equal records in a computer memory. Question: what can you do with your record that I cannot do with mine? Can you liquidate it like stock are liquidated and get the equity of some company? No. Me neither. Can you transfer it to another memory location. Yes. Me either. Can you take it to some institution or middleman such as bank and claim its property? No. Me neither. Can you observe it? Yes. Me either. Can you eat it? No. Me neither. Can you enjoy its numerical form? Yes. Me either. Can you drive it? No. Me neither. Can you take picture of it? Yes. Me either. So simply put, there is nothing what you can do with your record that I cannot do with mine.

Meaning, all the bitcoins in the world are woth the same as a number that one puts into his/her Excel spreadsheet. And you can benefit from it only if you fool someone to trade their valuable property, work or fiat currencies for this number. To put it differently. The same as in all ponzi-like schemes, no actual value exists behind bitcoin, and the only way one can get actual value, is from funds brought by new investors. And that's Bitcoin in a nutshell - good old Ponzi scheme dressed up in a new, digital, uniform.

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[Pmalek]

I see you decided to take your rant from the Croatian local forum and move it here as well.
The difference between your Excel Bitcoins and mine is that I just came back from a holiday that was around 50% financed by Bitcoins. Your excel Bitcoin can't do that.
Enjoy your stay at Bitcointalk, it seems it has become your favorite place in the world.

[Bttzed03]

Let's just reduce this post to "Bitcoin is backed by nothing" type of argument and its value is determined by the people who uses it. This has been raised plenty of times before and yet bitcoin is still alive. Never destroyed.

Let's suppose that you bought all the fiat currencies in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? Well you can wait a couple of months and then visit the banks that issued them to claim an enormous wealth in the form of land, buildings, machines, equipment and other property that the banks seized from the borrowers.

The banks can simply print as many fiat as they can and they will never run out of it. They can also declare that those fiats you bought to be out of circulation and just devalue them.

Finally, let's suppose that you bought all the bitcoins in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? To put it another way. After said purchase, all you have is a number in a computer memory - 18.232.575 (bitcoins currently in circulation). Let's suppose that I open my Excel spreadsheet and put the same number into it -> 18.232.575. Now we both have equal records in a computer memory.

...but no one else can prove ownership other than the owner of the wallet keys/seed containing those bitcoins by signing a message. You can have as many people with spreadsheets and the same number but can they prove that they really have it? NO.

Can you buy something and send bitcoin as payment just by using a spreadsheet? NO.

[antikvark]

Let's just reduce this post to "Bitcoin is backed by nothing" type of argument and its value is determined by the people who uses it.

Let's suppose that you bought all the fiat currencies in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? Well you can wait a couple of months and then visit the banks that issued them to claim an enormous wealth in the form of land, buildings, machines, equipment and other property that the banks seized from the borrowers.

The banks can simply print as many fiat as they can and they will never run out of it. They can also declare that those fiats you bought to be out of circulation and just devalue them.

Finally, let's suppose that you bought all the bitcoins in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? To put it another way. After said purchase, all you have is a number in a computer memory - 18.232.575 (bitcoins currently in circulation). Let's suppose that I open my Excel spreadsheet and put the same number into it -> 18.232.575. Now we both have equal records in a computer memory.

...but no one else can prove ownership other than the owner of the wallet keys/seed containing those bitcoins by signing a message. You can have as many people with spreadsheets and the same number but can they prove that they really have it? NO.

Can you buy something and send bitcoin as payment just by using a spreadsheet? NO.

Shure, we can reduce this post to "Bitcoin is backed by nothing" type of argument and its value is determined by the people who uses it. But that's true for all ponzi-like schems - they are all backed by nothing and - their value is determined by the people who uses them.

Regarding buying and selling with bitcoin. Well, the whole point of this topic is the question how can you benefit from bitcoins without selling them. Selling them is how this scheme operates in the first place. All ponzi-like schems operate by selling their membership stakes to the new investors. So, the question is how can you benefit from bitcois without selling them to a new investor?

[mk4]

But that's true for all ponzi-like schems - they are all backed by nothing and - their value is determined by the people who uses them.

You CAN'T have something decentralized but at the same time backed by something. It's an oxymoron. Goddamn it's already 2020 and we're still not done with the ponzi scheme argument.

Selling them is how this scheme operates in the first place. All ponzi-like scheme operate by selling their membership stakes to the new investors. So, the question is how can you benefit from bitcois without selling them to a new investor?

You don't even need to sell it 100% of the time. If you want to use bitcoin without selling it, then transact with someone willing to receive bitcoin. Also, what's really wrong with selling bitcoin? If we're doing a transaction for instance, and I prefer receiving EUR instead of your USD, you could simply convert your USD to EUR to comply with my terms. The conversion from USD to EUR is pretty much the same with the conversion from BTC to USD.

[johnyj]

Shure, we can reduce this post to "Bitcoin is backed by nothing" type of argument and its value is determined by the people who uses it. But that's true for all ponzi-like schems - they are all backed by nothing and - their value is determined by the people who uses them.

Regarding buying and selling with bitcoin. Well, the whole point of this topic is the question how can you benefit from bitcoins without selling them. Selling them is how this scheme operates in the first place. All ponzi-like schems operate by selling their membership stakes to the new investors. So, the question is how can you benefit from bitcois without selling them to a new investor?

This is always a topic that worth debate

In fact, every investment is a ponzi scheme, since you always have to find the next one who accept your payment, if you can not, it basically become worthless. Many such schemes (like pension fund and social security fund) do not collapse, simply because government can force people to buy into such scheme forever

Most of the fiat money is backed by government (once the government is replaced by another government, their fiat money will worth zero over night), but have you seen anyone go to government to exchange anything? None. So, the backing is just something that gives people confidence. It is better to say fiat money is backed by confidence, that it will be accepted by other people in the country that the government rules

And where does the confidence of bitcoin come from?  Suppose that its technology is without flaw, then similarly, the confidence comes from  the acceptance by other people in the world. Although this time, it is not by the people ruled by a certain government, but by the people who have confidence in its value

The core question is, what gives peopel more confidence? A government or knowledge and thinking. So far I could say it is still the government that gives people more confidence, but is that a good thing?

[avikz]

Finally, let's suppose that you bought all the bitcoins in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? To put it another way. After said purchase, all you have is a number in a computer memory - 18.232.575 (bitcoins currently in circulation). Let's suppose that I open my Excel spreadsheet and put the same number into it -> 18.232.575. Now we both have equal records in a computer memory. Question: what can you do with your record that I cannot do with mine? Can you liquidate it like stock are liquidated and get the equity of some company? No. Me neither. Can you transfer it to another memory location. Yes. Me either. Can you take it to some institution or middleman such as bank and claim their property? No. Me neither. Can you observe is? Yes. Me either. Can you eat it? No. Me neither. Can you enjoy its numerical form? Yes. Me either. Can you drive it? No. Me neither. Can you take picture of it? Yes. Me either. So simply put, there is nothing what you can do with your record that I cannot do with mine.

I can simply go to the crypto exchanges like Binance or Localbitcoins or Paxful and sell of my bitcoins against fiat currencies and do whatever I want with this enormous wealth. Can you do the same with your excel sheet - No!

Here ends all of your questions. My bitcoin are liquid in nature and your excel is not! What else do you want to know?

[Ucy]

If you buy all the fiat currency in the world, what stops a bank from illegally printing more fiat to meet a high demand? And this printing could end up devaluing the currency if manipulating the price overwhelms the authority. This can't happen (or easily happen) with real cryptocurrency like Bitcoin.

You probably don't understand Bitcoin yet. It solves alot of problems bedeviling fiat currencies. If I buy a land for two Bitcoin, the seller gets the two Bitcoin and keep it in his wallet. That is way better than handing the money to a bank. Your money don't get devalued, you control the fund, and you enjoy other important features of Bitcoin.
As people continue building more useful things on Bitcoin(hopefully quicker) it will be more useful, and work better than fiat and traditional stocks. Bitcoin can be programmed for many useful purposes. It can be programmed for insurance, real-estate, online marketplace, food reserve and for pretty much "anything".

[pakhitheboss]

Let's suppose that you bought all the stocks in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? Well you can liquidate them and get an enormous wealth in the form of land, buildings, vehicles, machines, equipment and other property of the companies that issued these stocks.

Let's suppose that you bought all the fiat currencies in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? Well you can wait a couple of months and then visit the banks that issued them to claim an enormous wealth in the form of land, buildings, vehicles, machines, equipment and other property that the banks seized from the borrowers. Namely, given that you bought all the fiat currencies, borrowers are unable to get the money for their loan repayments, and unpaid loans, lead to seizure of property that was pledged as a collateral. Given that the money issued by the banks is the liability of the banks, you as its holder have the claim on the bank's property. Now, why you have such a claim in the first place? It's because the banks created money out of thin air, which means that on its own, money is worthless. It is just numbers in the bank accounts or on the banknotes. So when the borrowers used these numbers to get goods or services from the market participants it is these participants who actually invested valuable property or work into newly created money. Given that borrowers defaulted of their loans, they didn't return these property or work back to the market participants through trades that would get them money for loan repayments. That's why the market participants have claims on the property that the banks sized from the borrowers. Since you bought all the money from these participants you became the owner of these claims.

Finally, let's suppose that you bought all the bitcoins in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? To put it another way. After said purchase, all you have is a number in a computer memory - 18.232.575 (bitcoins currently in circulation). Let's suppose that I open my Excel spreadsheet and put the same number into it -> 18.232.575. Now we both have equal records in a computer memory. Question: what can you do with your record that I cannot do with mine? Can you liquidate it like stock are liquidated and get the equity of some company? No. Me neither. Can you transfer it to another memory location. Yes. Me either. Can you take it to some institution or middleman such as bank and claim their property? No. Me neither. Can you observe is? Yes. Me either. Can you eat it? No. Me neither. Can you enjoy its numerical form? Yes. Me either. Can you drive it? No. Me neither. Can you take picture of it? Yes. Me either. So simply put, there is nothing what you can do with your record that I cannot do with mine.

Meaning, all the bitcoins in the world are woth the same as a number that one puts into his/her Excel spreadsheet. And you can benefit from it only if you fool someone to trade their valuable property, work or fiat currencies for this number. To put it differently. The same as in all ponzi-like schemes, no actual value exists behind bitcoin, and the only way one can get actual value, is from funds brought by new investors. And that's Bitcoin in a nutshell - good old Ponzi scheme dressed up in a new, digital, uniform.

What a shit post!!
.
You argument is baseless as it based on an excel sheet. I invested in Bitcoin in 2018 febuary and joined this forum after that. Now use your excel sheet and calculate the profit I have earned after HODLing Bitcoin for two years now.

From where did you come out with this dumb argument. First practically implement it and then calculate.

[FatFork]

Don't feed the trolls, guys!

This smartass pops up every now and then with his FUD about the 'worthlessness' of Bitcoin. He shits on almost every forum on the Croatian Bitcoin scene (btw, he's banned on almost every one of them) and also on bitcointalk at the Croatian Local Board.
This is most likely his old account: fxsurfer (also banned for spamming, trolling or whatever).

Fun fact: The last time (March, 2019) when he made all his wisecracks, Bitcoin entered the mini-bullrun phase and jumped more than 20%. So maybe this is an indication of something good?

[Wexnident]

You bought out every fiat currency out there sure. Okay. Banks would be like: Okay mate, time to print more so we can suck the assets of this guy. We can just tell that his bought "fiat money" is already out of date and isn't recognized anymore. You bought out every BTC out there okay. Exchanges would be like: Oh, we can't do anything about that. We can't even say that his coins are outdated cause you can consider each coin to be unique, and it is out of date seems to be an impossibility.

Next, Oh look I have 18 BTC and a number 18 on excel. Oh look, I'm rich cause I have 2 18s. Like seriously? It's like comparing while only looking at your own side. Oh look, I hodl my 18BTC after 2 years, I now earned almost $1m dollars. Oh look, I hodl my 18 on excel, it's still worth nothing. A ridiculous argument in all its entirety IMO.

[jhonjhon]

Let's just reduce this post to "Bitcoin is backed by nothing" type of argument and its value is determined by the people who uses it. This has been raised plenty of times before and yet bitcoin is still alive. Never destroyed.

Exactly, not only that, there has been a lot of rumors, scam accusations and etc that was thrown to bitcoin by various people or personalities but bitcoin is still alive. Bitcoin is a very strong technology that can't be tamed easily with anything, bitcoin has its share of advantages and disadvantages because nothing is perfect but bitcoin had helped a lot of people thus it will not be destroyed easily.

[thesmallgod]

I suppose you do not understand how monetary policy works in any country  . You think banks are just producing money. There is a regulation to that and even to its' used. By the way, you cannot single-handedly buy the owe stock. It is impossible to even in some third world countries that are more corrupt, that is not possible. Have you ever imagining the reason why there are laws such as AML. It is to check and stop something like this. I know a lot of ideas are being considered to make crypto a world thing, but this is out of it buddy.

[antikvark]

But that's true for all ponzi-like schems - they are all backed by nothing and - their value is determined by the people who uses them.

You CAN'T have something decentralized but at the same time backed by something. It's an oxymoron. Goddamn it's already 2020 and we're still not done with the ponzi scheme argument.

Selling them is how this scheme operates in the first place. All ponzi-like scheme operate by selling their membership stakes to the new investors. So, the question is how can you benefit from bitcois without selling them to a new investor?

You don't even need to sell it 100% of the time. If you want to use bitcoin without selling it, then transact with someone willing to receive bitcoin. Also, what's really wrong with selling bitcoin? If we're doing a transaction for instance, and I prefer receiving EUR instead of your USD, you could simply convert your USD to EUR to comply with my terms. The conversion from USD to EUR is pretty much the same with the conversion from BTC to USD.

Receiving bitcoin for the sake of receiving it is also what I can do with someone's Excel record. The conversion of currencies is buying and selling them. I will repeat: the whole point of this topic is the question how can you benefit from bitcoins without selling them to someone.

[20kevin20]

Can you have ~1M people validate the fact that your Excel record is owned by you in a non-deniable way? Can you split the record in 100,000,000 different pieces, transfer every single piece to other people's excel sheets and make this all in a fully transparent and deny-proof way AND have these ~1M people validate every single change for you?

The answer is no. I'd go further with these type of questions, but it makes no sense to me.

Now about your argument that Bitcoin cannot be used to buy properties, it can actually be used to buy almost anything if you're willing to. You can buy cars, real estate, electronics, you can do your grocery shopping, get a hotel room, a lunch.. hell, you can even go get a one-night girl with it. And these are just some examples. Now take your excel sheet, go to Lamborghini's dealership and let them know you want to buy a car with your Excel sheet.. You can throw it in the trash as well, because you can't get any of that.

Your arguments sound more like "praise banks, fuck freedom". Gold would be just as worthless if scientists will ever figure a way to reproduce gold out of thin air - and I honestly believe there's gonna be a certain point where they will. Can just anyone reproduce your Excel record? Yes. Can anyone produce the 21,000,001th Bitcoin out of thin air? No. Can you transform your entire wealth into an Excel record and go around the world having it all sit in your pocket with the possibility of buying fiat again with it at any given time? No.

Hence, your arguments make no sense to me. It looks to me like you don't understand Bitcoin well enough to understand why it's such an amazing store of value. Fuck fiat. Fuck banks. Praise Bitcoin

[fiulpro]

You know the people with people is they think the traditional methods are the rule stated by some big body that you cannot just break .
Fiat , gold everything is working according to the government , according to the system .
But we fail to realize that ,
Chang is the nature of nature
We will have new systems time to time , new currencies , new ways . We have to be very welcoming to these things , because people who are too stern usually are not able to survive for long .
Time is ever changing and bitcoins is a new system , which is balanced by the people itself , no one else , I do think you should be ok with this idea , even if you don't support it please don't ridicule people who do.

[alani123]

That is not a very good argument against any asset that can be traded freely.

The questions to destroy OP's bitcoin destroying question would be pretty simple.

Where would the price reach if a party with that wealth wanted to buy all of bitcoin?
Would everybody sell? How about mining?

It's something against any rational party's interest. Freely tradable goods are only valuable so long as there's demand and a market around them. No rational actor will ever want to buy all of bitcoin. Even considering that it might be possible and overlooking other holes in this mindset. Any issues that might arise from a single party owning all of BTC are less severe than a single party owning all of another asset.

If a party buys all of the stock of a company, it's faced with devaluation if they seek to liquidate again. Value is based on human actions and not on utility with stocks. After a stock is desisted, there's no free market for it unless regulators step in again to allow a re-listing. With bitcoin, those hurdles wouldn't exist. The party owning all of BTC could liquidate without limitations. Not even those limitations phrased in the OP. It doesn't matter that BTC can't be liquidated like company assets, because it can be liquidated in any other way.

[antikvark]

Can you have ~1M people validate the fact that your Excel record is owned by you in a non-deniable way? Can you split the record in 100,000,000 different pieces, transfer every single piece to other people's excel sheets and make this all in a fully transparent and deny-proof way AND have these ~1M people validate every single change for you?

The answer is no. I'd go further with these type of questions, but it makes no sense to me.

Now about your argument that Bitcoin cannot be used to buy properties, it can actually be used to buy almost anything if you're willing to. You can buy cars, real estate, electronics, you can do your grocery shopping, get a hotel room, a lunch.. hell, you can even go get a one-night girl with it. And these are just some examples. Now take your excel sheet, go to Lamborghini's dealership and let them know you want to buy a car with your Excel sheet.. You can throw it in the trash as well, because you can't get any of that.

Your arguments sound more like "praise banks, fuck freedom". Gold would be just as worthless if scientists will ever figure a way to reproduce gold out of thin air - and I honestly believe there's gonna be a certain point where they will. Can just anyone reproduce your Excel record? Yes. Can anyone produce the 21,000,001th Bitcoin out of thin air? No. Can you transform your entire wealth into an Excel record and go around the world having it all sit in your pocket with the possibility of buying fiat again with it at any given time? No.

Hence, your arguments make no sense to me. It looks to me like you don't understand Bitcoin well enough to understand why it's such an amazing store of value. Fuck fiat. Fuck banks. Praise Bitcoin

If you own all the bitcoins in the world and you decided not to sell them, why would ~1M people even want to validate the fact that your Bitcoin record is owned by you in a non-deniable way?

The rest is just a long way of saying that you can sell your bitcoins, while the question that this topic deals with is how can you benefit from bitcoins WITHOUT selling them to someone.

[davis196]

Let's suppose that you bought all the fiat currencies in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? Well you can wait a couple of months and then visit the banks that issued them to claim an enormous wealth in the form of land, buildings, vehicles, machines, equipment and other property that the banks seized from the borrowers. Namely, given that you bought all the fiat currencies, borrowers are unable to get the money for their loan repayments, and unpaid loans, lead to seizure of the property that was pledged as a collateral. Given that the money issued by the banks is the liability of the banks, you as its holder have the claim on the bank's property. Now, why you have such a claim in the first place?

The hypothetical situation you are describing is complete BS.Have you ever heard of fractional reserve banking?I will be glad if you really go to a bank and claim something in exchange for your precious fiat money.
I guess you mean bank deposits,not actual fiat money.If all the bank customers claim their deposits at the same time,the bank just bankrupts and it won't pay anything to anyone.
Bitcoin is backed by the trust of it's users in the blockchain technology.
Fiat money are backed by the "trust" every nation has in it's own government.

[antikvark]

That is not a very good argument against any asset that can be traded freely.

The questions to destroy OP's bitcoin destroying question would be pretty simple.

Where would the price reach if a party with that wealth wanted to buy all of bitcoin?
Would everybody sell? How about mining?

It's something against any rational party's interest. Freely tradable goods are only valuable so long as there's demand and a market around them. No rational actor will ever want to buy all of bitcoin. Even considering that it might be possible and overlooking other holes in this mindset. Any issues that might arise from a single party owning all of BTC are less severe than a single party owning all of another asset.

If a party buys all of the stock of a company, it's faced with devaluation if they seek to liquidate again. Value is based on human actions and not on utility with stocks. After a stock is desisted, there's no free market for it unless regulators step in again to allow a re-listing. With bitcoin, those hurdles wouldn't exist. The party owning all of BTC could liquidate without limitations. Not even those limitations phrased in the OP. It doesn't matter that BTC can't be liquidated like company assets, because it can be liquidated in any other way.

The purpose of my assumptions was not to represent reality. Of course that buying all stocks or bitcoins is unrealistic. The purpose was to help understand that unlike in stocks or fiat currencies, no actual value is owned by bitcoin holders - just like in the case of my Excel record. People hold bitcoins. I hold my Excel record. And we can all benefit only from selling our records to other people, just like in Ponzi schemes. So your comment is besides the point